The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1887-10-14
A few Observations in and about the
Grand Encampment by an old
Allen County Blue Coat.


for the next.
We arrived in st. Louis about s
o'clock the next morning amid a sort
of drizzling rain which continued all
day. We were met at the station by
the local committee and escorted to
Washington Park, about three blocks
from the depot. This park is the most
centrally located Of any of the many
that st. Louis has and must be beau.
tiful place in fine weather as 1t has an
abundance Ofshade trees, two hydrants
a fountain and many beautiful plants.
The headquarters tent of the command
ers in chief was pitched here, the tent
Of the general committee and also the
headquarters tent of each State and
Territory. Two cannOns were station
ed in this park also, to be used in fir
ing salutes and sun rise and sun down
guns. Seven hundred tents were
pitched In this park which were soon
filled and the Kansas boys overlooked
to other places. It seemed as though
they never would stop coming. Every
new arrival was hailed with renewed
shouts. and they would hardly get
through before lot more would come
along. One man wanted to know if
all the old soldiers in Kansas were
coming. One Post had the number
and name of their Post printed on
long piece of cloth also very large
grasshopper eating at q very large ear
Of corn. They had also the name of
each one of the Post who were present,
on the same cloth. 1t is needless to
say that altogether it all attracted no
small share of attention, especially the
grasshopper az many had never seen
anything that looked like Kansas
grasshOpper before.
There was another feature of the
Kansas camp, 1t was surrounded by
ed large shed with a canvass cover
where beer and whiskey were to be
had by the schooner" full or glass by
all who had the nickel. It seemed to
your humble servant that the people
of st. Louis had taken into account the
long drouth that the prohibition law
had caused in Kansas and that they
meant to give them a chance to break
it. II is perhaps needless to say that
the drouth was thoroughly broken.
One comrade exclaimed, "What great
'schooners' of beer! ~ Mr.. Davis, south
of Humboldt. said, "There is more beer
and whiskey in st. Louis than there is
water in Kansas" and it almost
seemed true to those who had not seen
an open saloon for years. In st. Lou
is they are everywhere, and almost
without number. People can say what
they please about prohibition not pro-
hibiting" in Kansas, but it does
all the same. You can see the differ
epce in the people they have that
fiOrid, pulled up appearance in the face
and light-skined complexion that is
peculiar to haoitual drinkers. Mis-
souri, would be a thousand times bet
ter off with prohibition than she is
with her 80, 900 majority against it.
We make no excuse for writing the
above. 1t is one of the observations of
our trip, and they are what we started
in to tell.
Now for the Encampment. The
town was full of the old boys. Blue
coats and badges were everywhere. If
anybody imagines that the old fellows
are all dead they are nightly mistak-
Ell. Neither have they lost all their
vitality. While nearly every head was
quite gray-some as white as wool,
some whose forms are bent With the
weight of years and the strain of the
hardest service a man ever saw, that
of the army in actual war-still there
was that about their walk that distin-
guished them from other men. The
war gave an individuality to the men
engaged in it that nothing but that
kind Of experience will. They went
there because they thought, and staid
there until the idea for which they
went was accomplished, the thinking
and the experience of the time left its
impress upon them, and leaves a line
of demarkation between them and
other men who did not have school
like theirs. Could the President and
his admirers be made to understand
this they would not wonder at the al
most universal condemnation by them
of the tone of his veto messages, and
their resentments Of the slurs, sneers
and inuendOes used by him against
them and their friends. For these
reasons and no others they did not
want him to come to st. Louis while
they were there. He began to call
hard pames first and he ought not to
complain if he gets hard names back.
We took particular pains to enquire Of
men from almost every State and Ter
ritory what they thought of the Pres
lidept's vetOes, and the almost univer-
sal reply was: 1--WE don't blame him
for vetoing the bills if he thought he
ought to, but he might have left out
the hard names and slurs against us
and our friends" In reply to the
question put as extensively as the one
l q h. n 70 IN
the boys in your section going to vote
on president next year," the answers
have been as emphatic, and perhaps
more so, that very few would vote for
Cleveland, and that many had declared
they would never vote another demo.
cratic ticket.
Tuesday was as misty and rainy as
Monday so the parade was put off till
Wednesday.
Your scribe took in the Exposition.
We spent about five hours there and
then it did not seem that we had seen
Ione-half there was to be seen. One
thing we did see was sewing machine
for making button holes. 1t would sew
and cut button hole while one ordin-
arily would be getting hold of the
shears or knife to cut it. The hole was
Isewed around before il was cut. From
examination it seemed to be well done
and would do good service. We also
saw an armor worn by Han Che, of Chi
ma, in the 10th century; saw an auto
graph of Geo. Washington's, in which
he expresses his good will for some OF
his friends; also q leaf from the origin
al manuscript ofVirgil's Aeneid. Spent
some time in trying to read it tut found
II a mighty si0ht harder work Than it